Ever since I have owned Lurch, the gearbox has been noisy!

"Apologise for the bad formatting of this post! For some reason it has not copied from MS word correctly."

Ever since I have owned Lurch, the gearbox has "whined". As one might imagine, it has slowly been getting worse - "slowly" being the operative word, as I have been changing the oil more frequently than the specified service intervals.I bought some spares a couple of years later and as luck would have it, there was a gearbox / Diff unit amongst them. So earlier on this year I gave the spare gearbox to my friend Alf who agreed to rebuild it for me.He has a suitable workshop with the relevant tools and a couple of special tools that make re-building a gearbox easier! Certainly easier than trying to do it in the open air on a workbench and having to hammer bearings in and out!

Anyway, he sent me a list of new parts that would berequired for the gearbox and these were duly ordered from Haflinger Technic. Biggest expense was a replacement reverse gear cog - the one in the 'box was missing a tooth! Alf proceeded to rebuild the gearbox which turned out to be an "early" 4 speed + Krawler gearbox. Slightly different from Lurch's 5 speed box, but then beggars can't be choosers!

With the gearbox being ready, We made a plan for me to driveLurch up to his place and then spend the weekend swapping them over. A long journey through London because I don't fancy argueing with the traffic trying to go through the Dartford tunnel, but somehow I am prepared to argue with the traffic going through the Blackwall tunnel(?) Weird! I actually drove Lurch to work and then set off for Alf's straight after work as there was no point driving home and then driving virtually passed work's front door an hour later. Anyway, fight my way through London rush hour traffic and arrive at Alf's late Friday evening. The rest of the evening spent nattering andplanning the following days tasks.

Having woken early and had breakfast, we set about disconnecting everything connecting the engine and gearbox from the platformand undoing the 4 bolts that hold the platform to the towers.Engine out, and jack the platform up high enough to remove the gearbox and tower as one piece. There were various nuts and bolts that fought to stay connected, but all eventually succumbed to the administrations of either of us or both depending on what was required.

With the gearbox out, we had to strip the two drive axles and ancillary items to make up a working gearbox to put back in Lurch. Firstunforeseen problem was when the rear diff lock would not work. Dismantled whilst it was still on the bench, but there appeared to be nothing wrong, maybe it was just sticking due to lack of oil? Who knows? With it working we finished putting things back on the Diff. Call it a day, more work tomorrow!

Manhandle the gearbox and drive shafts back in under Lurch and start putting things back together. We had problems adjusting the gear linkage as the three holes wouldn't line up, dismantle the cap on the gearbox tower, re-adjust the linkage and finish connecting things up. Engine back in and connected up. Fire it up and go, err attempt to go for a drive - sort of some forward gears, no reverse! What's gone wrong? It appears that the forks in the gearbox are jamming as we move the gear lever. Alf was sure he hadn't put it together wrongly, but it did look like the fingers on the selector forks were in the wrong place.

By this time it was getting late on the Sunday evening and I needed to be back at work the next morning, so I took the train home and leftpoor Lurch in Alf's workshop. During the week, Alf spent some time working out what was wrong. he came to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with the gearbox and that it was the bottom of the gear lever linkage that had too much play in it!

So I had been expecting to catch a train back to Alf's and to spend the next weekend busy working on Lurch to sort out whatever was wrong.As it turned out, Alf had fixed it during the week and all I was going to have to do was go and collect Lurch! The clutch and gearbox feel very different compared to Lurch's original gearbox, but at least this one doesn't whine. The clutch sticks but that is probably due to the fact the main drive pinion shaft on this new gearbox was very rusty and has just been cleaned up as much as possible. Maybe some use will smooth things out a bit.

The drive back home showed up a couple of things, like I need to replace the brake shoes and the handbrake cable. There is also an issue with an oil leak from a front diff gaiter and possibly from the fulcrum pins.

John

Comments

Alf kindly came down to my place with his trailer and collected Lurch and meand took us back to his place. Several hours later we had the replacementgearbox / diff out and discovered that it is not a broken drive shaft but aseized Differential! Centre tube was seized on the outer sleeve.

We didn't spend any time looking at it other than to identify that it was thecause of the one wheel drive!

Alf had managed to put new bearings in the original gearbox / diff, so we hadsomething to put back in. Not really able to leave a Haflinger platform up inthe air with a stack of wood and jacks holding it up! With everything back inplace many hours later we are ready for a test drive. It did not go well. Icouldn't get into fifth gear unless I was down at crawling speed. Adjustment ofthe clutch sort of solve that issue, but now we have something that hasperplexed both of us.

The gearbox grates when you change gear COMING OUT of "2" nd towards"3"rd and again when you COME out of "4"th going into"5"th! Of course all this happens at the end of the weekend, I had amigraine by this time and Alf has gone beyond the call of duty and drove me allthe way home as I was really not up to getting the train home at that point. Hethen obviously, had to drive himself all the way back home afterwards!

Watch this space as there will be another update when we have worked out whathas gone wrong this time with the original gearbox / diff. It is unlikely thatit is the actual gearbox as Alf has re-built lots of them previously withoutissues. Far more likely is another component that we have disturbed is nowcausing problems.

Thanks John for the update, look forward to the conclusion of the article, All ways said that Alf was brill !! can we print the article in the next Club Magazine, not out till October so hope fully ' Lurch ' will be sorted by then and we can print the final outcome. Pete